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Xi Jinping set to woo Vietnam with new rail and rare earth projects in bid to curb rising US clout
- The South China Sea dispute between China and Vietnam is not expected to become a sticking point during Xi’s meetings in Hanoi
- Xi is likely to outline China’s commitment to maintain strong ties with Vietnam even as Hanoi leans closer towards Washington
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Chinese President Xi Jinping’s coming visit to Vietnam is set to intensify the competition between Beijing and Washington to joust for influence in the strategically important Southeast Asian country.
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During Xi’s two-day state visit from Tuesday, he is expected to dangle multi-billion dollar carrots of a new rail link and rare earth projects in a bid to curb the rising US clout in Vietnam, analysts say.
While Beijing and Hanoi remain embroiled in the South China Sea dispute, their divergent territorial claims are not expected to be a sticking point in meetings between Xi and top Vietnamese leaders.
Much has changed since Xi’s last visit in 2017, which overlapped with former US President Donald Trump’s state trip to Hanoi following the annual Apec meeting in Danang. Trump’s trade war, which caused firms to relocate billions of dollars in investments from China to Vietnam, was only just beginning. Nor had Vietnam yet declared the United States a comprehensive strategic partner, its highest designation reserved only for closest allies.
But as Vietnam inches closer toward the West amid its security concerns over China’s ambitions in the South China Sea, Xi continues to be a welcomed guest in Hanoi. He will be received with a 21-gun salute by his counterparts in the Vietnamese Communist Party and meet its four most senior officials.
“The two parties have a very close relationship with each other,” said Le Dang Doanh, a retired senior economic adviser to five Vietnamese prime ministers, adding that the Chinese embassy in Hanoi liaises not with Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as would be standard practice in diplomacy, but directly with the Central Committee’s commission for external relations with other communist parties.
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